Amitabh Shukla

New Delhi, September 21

The Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) has identified "high end prostitution" as a major social malaise affecting Delhi and has drawn up a strategy to end the problem.

Counseling and awareness sessions have already been organised by the DCW in a few colleges of Delhi University and more such sessions have been planned in girls' hostels.

"In our meeting held recently, we decided to nip the problem in the bud before it assumes gigantic proportions," said Kiran Walia, Chairperson of the DCW. She said the problem was two-year old and was flourishing in the city. "It is like drug addiction where once you are hooked you find it difficult to get out of it. Most of the educated women do it just to earn a quick buck and never opt out of it," Walia said.

According to the study conducted by the DCW and other women organisations, college girls and working women have been lured in prostitution in the last two years. "It was shocking to learn that even school students had entered the trade," said Walia. She said the DCW was making efforts to reach out to even the school students of the 11th and 12th Class to make them aware about it.

The three planks on which the DCW has based it awareness campaign are getting diseases like AIDS, involvement with criminals and a life long stigma if caught by the police. The camps have so far been held in Shivaji and Janki Devi College. Another session was held in a school where students from several schools participated.

The DCW chairperson has asked the police to implement the law strictly. "Any person living out of the money earned from pimps and prostitution is liable to be prosecuted," Walia said. She asked the police officials to persecute those landlords who rent out their houses in posh south Delhi colonies to pimps for carrying out the nefarious trade. (2004)